14 August 2014
Location: Unknown
Reflections: Sometimes, you have to bear in mind that even though you are happy to meet someone, the feeling may not be mutual. Many unwanted guests thrive by ignoring this.
~~~
The last few days have been uneventful, it seems adequate that they were summarised in a few quick paragraphs before I proceeded to the meat of this log entry.
Following the interlude, I rested a couple of days to regain my strength. At the same time, I managed to attach a loudspeaker to the roof of my MPV, with a pre-recorded message in Malay for any humans to reveal themselves or to proceed to the safe house I prepared. I had to choose Malay as there is a limited message length to be recorded and it was the language that most people in Malaysia would understand. I hope. I've changed my mind about directing any potential survivors to either of my hideouts, so I set myself to secure the Sri Serdang Police Station as a safe house. Although I had previously broken the lock, I managed to keep the doors closed by curling a chain between the handles of the double front door. Simple enough for a human to undo, yet reasonably zombie-proof. Inside, I prepared a cache of supplies: food, water and weapons in the form of golf clubs. Naturally, I removed the corpses of the zombies and set them on fire.
The last two days, I have been driving around random areas closest to home with the loudspeaker playing my message. Thus far, nothing significant had occurred. I had decided to start slow and to increase my patrols from there.
Today, I ventured out of the Seri Kembangan area and made my way to Cheras. There were a lot of residential areas here and I was leery of going into uncharted territory. But it had to be done. Cruising around Taman Segar, I spotted one of the armed escort vans usually accompanied bank security officers in reloading the ATM machines. Hmmm....
Coming to a stop, I turned the loudspeaker off and stepped out, hoping for stuff to scavenge. Gravel crunched beneath the Timberland boots I had appropriated from their outlet in The Mines. The sound was unnaturally loud in the silence of the dead neighbourhood. Before any scavenging activity, I ensured that no unpleasant surprises awaited me by making sure all the corpses were rotting and that no movement could be seen from the horizon. I reasoned that there was no sense in blaring my horn to startle any zombies, my looping message should have alerted anything alive or undead of my presense anyway.
The security van looked largely intact, though I could see dents on the side where something or somethings had obviously been pushed against the frame. The window on the driver's side was smashed and there was the dark brown of dried blood on the seats. No bodies though. I knocked my club against the side of the van to see if there was any answering sound from within, and opened the back door of the vehicle. The pungent odour of rot wafted to my nose, concentrated from being kept in the air tight compartment. I retched at the side noisily. Any creature that would have attacked me at that time would have found me easy prey.
I shone my torch into the interior of the van, and found a dead officer. Much to my delight, I also found a shotgun, much like the one I inconveniently broke against the face of a zombie a few weeks back. Holding my breath, I retrieved the gun, and grave robbed the dead body for ammunition. I found shotgun shells and some bullets for my revolvers. Weird, the former security officer did not have a revolver in his holster. A search of the van also failed to unearth any other weapons. Nevertheless, the shotgun was a capital find. With the 6 shells I already had at home plus the dozen or so that I had just liberated from the van, I had reason to feel happy.
I loaded the shotgun, and kept it in the passenger seat of the car. I had no experience firing a shot gun and there will be need to practice, in the safety of my headquarters anyway.
I continued my journey, and it was at Taman Len Sen when I decided to stop in a safe, open area for lunch when I heard a faint noise. The loudspeaker and closed windows had all but ensured I would not hear it otherwise. The sound was familiar, but very vague and too faint for me to recognise it. Hastily gobbling my food, I started my engine and promptly lost the noise. I would have to drive towards it and hope I can find it.
The loudspeaker was off this time, as I did not want to risk not hearing the sound, yet was too paranoid and unwilling to keep my windows rolled down. Minutes later, I caught the sound again and realised it was the Azan, the Muslim call to prayers. A quick glance at the clock showed that this was no time for prayers, which meant someone had to have set the Azan playing outside of the appointed time, or was singing it in person. Depending on the mosque, the call to prayer could be live or pre-recorded. Either way, this could mean that there were fellow humans out there.
Taman Len Sen was not a place I am familiar with, and it took me a while to locate the mosque. There was definitely somebody playing a pre-recorded call as it was going in loop, much like my own message was. I honked loudly and continuously at the mosque, not daring to alight from my vehicle. After a minute or two, the Azan was cut off. I waited in the Vellfire for the door to open, and after some time. a head poked out of a window on the upper floor of the mosque.
I wound my window down and asked if he was still human and healthy. In retrospect, it was stupid question. The youth, or boy really, responded that he was indeed human and healthy, and apparently not all too delighted to see me. That struck me as weird, though I was elated to see a human face again that was not trying to eat me.
We continued our conversation, from car window to mosque window. Here is a transcript of the conversation:
Him: What are you doing here?
Me: I'm looking for fellow survivors, of course. Are you the only one there?
Him:No, I'm not.
Me (to myself): Not very forthcoming, is he? You'd think that in current circumstances, he'd be happier to see a fellow human and not be so reticent.
Me: I'm really happy to hear that! Do you need help? I haven't met another human for a long time! Is it okay if I came in? (Under normal circumstances, this would have been a horrible faux pax, as I was not a Muslim and I understand it is frowned upon for non-believers to enter a Mosque for no reason. But these are hardly normal times, eh?)
Him: No, go away! You shouldn't be here!
At this point, the head disappeared and the window closed. Nonplussed, I sat there in consternation while pondering my next move. The call to prayer startled me out of my cogitations and I noticed that there were moving figures coming towards the mosque. A lot of them. This could be a Problem.
Deciding rashly, I grabbed most of my gear, sans shield and shotgun, and left the Vellfire. I ran to to mosque and started hammering on the door, demanding that they come out. My vehicle should be enough to save them and get away.
My cries were ignored, and one of the faster moving zombies had caught up to me. I backhanded the zombie (that hurt!) from me and broke its jaw with my club. Fuck, I didn't have my shield with me and there were at least another four of them between me and my car. It would be ironic that I would meet my end while trying to save my fellow human. I backed up until the door was right behind me, and took a ready stance. Before the zombies managed to get within striking distance, I felt the door open and shots rang out beside my ear. Rough hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into the mosque before shutting the door.
I saw the face from the window glaring at me. An older man said something to me but I was still deaf from the shots. I shook my head and tried to speak. There was a sharp pain and then darkness.
I had just awoken in a small room, which smelled musty but appeared clean. My belongings were still with me, with a piece of paper saying to not speak, make noise or attempt to escape, for my own safety. The back of my head hurt from the cheap blow to it. I have no clue what I had gotten myself into.
Heeding the warning on the paper, I settled down to wait and extracted the spare Surface from my backpack to draft this entry in case something were to happen to me. Both the tablets have copies of previous log entries so at least they would still have access to my information even if they decided to kill me.
End log.
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